Judge denies bail for Deltona man linked to dead woman, 2 children

DAYTONA BEACH —Shortly after they were married two years ago, Yessenia Suarez and Luis Toledo were baptized together at a Seventh Day Adventist Church in Deltona.

On Friday, Toledo remained locked in the Volusia County Branch Jail while authorities continued a search for the bodies of Suarez and her 9-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son.

So far, Luis Toledo faces only a charge of domestic battery. He's accused of slapping his wife Tuesday during an argument at her place of work, a Lake Mary company.

But Volusia County deputies confirmed late Thursday that Suarez and her two children — Thalia Otto and Michael Otto — are dead, although they would not say what led them to that conclusion.

They describe Toledo as a "person of interest" in their disappearances.

Toledo appeared in court Friday before Volusia County Judge Robert Sanders, who ordered him held without bail until he is transferred to Seminole County, where his wife alleged the domestic abuse took place.

"Given the nature and gravity of the circumstances, we're recommending that he be kept on no bail," Volusia County Assistant State Attorney Ryan Will said.

After the hearing, he confirmed that Toledo is the subject of a murder investigation.

Assistant Public Defender Roger Lewis told reporters that his office had been alerted that Toledo could face first-degree murder charges.

Some family members, however, held out hope that the mother and children would be found alive.

"Until the bodies are found, I won't believe it," said Suarez's uncle Jose Cintron of Tampa.

Neighbors had set up chairs and a couch in the Deltona driveway of Suarez's mother, Felicita Perez, and throughout the day, church and family members visited bringing food and words of comfort.

Above them, search helicopters circled woods south of the family's Deltona neighborhood along the edge of Interstate 4.

Heber Lopez, pastor of the Spanish Seventh Day Adventist church in Deltona, said he met Suarez and Toledo in spring 2011. Both were baptized into the congregation of about 500 people, he said.

Suarez was a teacher for the Adventurers Club — a group for elementary school-age children —in which her son and daughter participated, Lopez said.

"They were a happy family," Lopez said. "We laughed together. Spent time together. We shared many moments with them … and now, we can't sleep."

It's not clear what drew Suarez, a 28-year-old working mother who also attended Rollins College, to Toledo, a former Orlando-area gang member with a violent history.

The couple had been married for nearly three years but had been discussing a separation, records show.

Toledo went to state prison for taking part in an armed home invasion in Broward County, according to state and prosecution records. He also went to jail in Volusia County for shooting his gun toward a victim, an incident in which no one was hurt.

And he was arrested but later cleared on charges that he and other gang members gave a baseball-bat beating to a woman whom they also choked with a plastic bag in Orange County.

All of those incidents happened between 1997 and 2000 when Toledo was 15 to 19 years old and in a period during which he told deputies he was a member of a gang called the Latin Kings.

He was released from state prison in 2008 after serving four years for two sets of crimes — the Broward County home invasion and an Orange County burglary. Until earlier this week, had not been rearrested for a violent crime in Florida.

Information about him, except for his criminal record, is hard to come by. According to records at the Volusia County Jail, his mother and father are dead.

A brother, Christopher LaSanta, is a convicted cocaine trafficker who lives in Sanford, but he did not return phone calls.

One friend would not talk to the Orlando Sentinel, saying he feared reprisals from Toledo's family. Records suggest Toledo worked, at times, at fast-food restaurants and for a hotel.

One thing is clear: As a teenager he was violent and used several aliases, including Michael Angel Garcia and Angel Rivera.

•In the home invasion in Broward County, Toledo wound up convicted of armed burglary, armed robbery and kidnapping. According to prosecution records there, he and other suspects kicked in a door, used duct tape to tie up the victim and a female friend and threatened them with guns, then ransacked the home.

•He was arrested on a charge of attempted murder in Orange County in 2000, accused of trying to strangle a woman. Prosecutors later abandoned the case, but here is what Toledo admitted to, according to his arrest report:

On Halloween night 2000 he lured a woman whom he accused of betraying him to a dark area, and he and three other gang members overpowered her, beat her with an aluminum baseball bat then put a plastic bag over her head.